54 thoughts on “Release: President Forever 2012 v. 1.1.1”

I was just toying around with Gingrich and Romney and decided to have them move both of their platforms to Far-Left on everything to see if the votes they lost went to Paul or Santorum. Basically, despite being new-found Socialists, the Republican voters became undecided, and then rather join Paul or Santorum, they voted for Comrade Gingrich or Comrade Romney after a short waiting time.

I was wondering how much a state’s platform is involved in the polls or voting if it is different from the candidate?

I originally had this question when playing the 2008 version. I created a candidate that was Far-Left in everything, I gave him 999 political points and a lot of money, to see if it was possible for him to beat Dems or Reps given that. He started with very little support in any states, he had some token support in the New England area.

Generally, when I played. He would increase to about 15-20% by election day. Strangely, he did really well in the Deep South, one of the Dakotas, Wyoming, and seem to not do well in some of the New England states. Some of this would not be possible today, even with that much money.

Therefore, I was wondering if it would be possible to make voting patterns based more on the platform of the states. Somehow make that stronger?

Big problem, I ran as Ron Paul and it was close primary race all the way till the last state Nebraska. That’s when I clinched the lead and it was a three way tie between Paul, Romney, and Gingrich. The primary came, Romney and Santorum were eliminated. Neither of us got their delegates. Then Paul was declared the winner. The general election had Obama leading by a few points. Then the first day of the general election came and Obama shot up 30 points from 47 to 72. The only state I was winning was South Carolina.

Also, attack ads against an opponent show us as “Republicans” instead of a specified candidate. Also I notice almost all of my positive ads have another republican as the small photo. For example, If I was running a positive ad as Ron Paul, the picture in the ads window and also when spinning news shows Romney’s picture or someone else.

Convention is uneventful and other features like the newspaper that delivers news, election night need to be updated. There are so many ways that they can be spruced up and advanced. Hope to see those change in the upcoming versions. Good update though

I would like to see the debate results as a separate pop-up, other than being attached with the news/events. Especially, if you can add some specifics about how they scored. Maybe separate pop-ups for endorsements. Also, maybe something that influences the VP choice, rather than having a list of names. For instance, maybe Chris Christie would be the best choice for VP based on ability, but for arguments sake, lets say that you really need someone like Sarah Palin, just to get the voters who would prefer someone more like her. It would make the selection of a VP less impersonal if there is some thought behind the decision. Maybe this is already in the game, but I haven’t really noticed it.

I’m stoked to be able to play the primaries, but I’m pretty disappointed that we’ve only got Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, or Paul. It’d be really fun to play as Bachmann or Perry trying to get their candidacies back on track, or as Huntsman to see if he can actually vault himself into the race with a good New Hampshire showing (better than 3rd). Perhaps playing as Pawlenty to see if he could’ve gone anywhere if he hadn’t dumped all of his resources into winning a straw poll. Or, maybe starting a late entry by Mitch Daniels or Mike Huckabee to shake up the race?

What was always so fun about P4E ’08’s primaries was that you could do things radically different than what the ultimate outcome was (I don’t think I ever played as Clinton or Obama). Will other candidates be added for the final version, or are we basically stuck with the “final four?”

What if there was an option to choose when to start? Therefore, it would raise the difficulty of, say Huntsman, if you start in January. So if someone wants a challenge, they can do that. Or one could start in summer 2011 and given more of an opportunity. Additionally, let’s say someone wants to be a 3rd party, Trump or Bloomberg, and decides to start in late February when it seemed like the Republican Party was tearing itself apart. I think different start dates allows for some great scenario ideas. Maybe have a start date at all the key dates: 1) when someone joins the race, 2) leaves the race, 3) Beginning of primaries 4) Super Tuesday. But I think going back to when candidates declare is also an interesting idea. However, i think rather than going day by day, it should be week by week or month by month until it gets to Fall 2011.

A candidate editor will probably be integrated into the game. From the Start Screen, you will be able to click a button, which will open a screen to edit candidates. I emphasize probably, as no decision has been made on this. If it happens, it probably will be implemented near the end of development.

@Jonathan re: different start dates,

This is a good idea. The simplest way is probably to have multiple scenarios, one for each key point in the primaries campaign. Another possibility would be for a user to make a simple start date change, while keeping everything else the same in the scenario. I’ll think about this.

@Jacob,

Those candidates are just for the time being. The slate of candidates will be expanded as development continues.

@Hagrid,

The December start date is to start things off, and to help in game testing. I anticipate adding at least one other start date (in addition to the general election start date). We’ll see.

Re: days per turn, this is noted. As game testing continues, this might be modified.

@Jonathan,

Re: debate info, noted.

Re: veeps, we’ll see how to expand the significance of a veep decision.

@James,

Convention will probably be modified in versions to come.

@GOPGipper,

Re: minor glitch, thanks – noted.

Re: computer player AI, the focus is now on three things – computer player AI, gameplay, and adding features. It should start improving with the next version.

@Rz,

“attack ads against an opponent show us as “Republicans” instead of a specified candidate. Also I notice almost all of my positive ads have another republican as the small photo.”

Thanks for this – noted, should be fixed in next version.

“Then the first day of the general election came and Obama shot up 30 points from 47 to 72. The only state I was winning was South Carolina. ”

Was this temporary (lasts for one turn), or did it persist?

@Jonathan,

“then rather join Paul or Santorum, they voted for Comrade Gingrich or Comrade Romney after a short waiting time.”

Noted.

“I was wondering if it would be possible to make voting patterns based more on the platform of the states. Somehow make that stronger?”

Yes, this would involve switching the way voters actually work in the game (using favorability ratings that are significantly tied to platforms, for example). We’ll see.

-On election night, it should be “______ has won the presidency” not “_______ has taken the majority in the house of representatives.” I know this was modeled after C4E2010 so I guess you haven’t addressed election night yet.

-Also on election night, when you double click the state it doesn’t go from Republican Democrat to Mitt Romney Barack Obama. It goes from Republican Democrat to Republican Democrat.

-There should big a skip button once you wrap up the nomination

-One of the biggest problems is Newt Gingrich and other minor candidates polling just as strong as Mitt Romney. You should implement a generic republican and then base candidate on a deviation away from the number. Generic Republican is shown in the primaries and then the general election, depending on what candidate you choose, the deviation kicks in. For instance:

Yea I agree with Rz9392 and on election night it will predict the election like 8 states into the night and some times it is right but the point is it should not call the election till someone crosses 270 E.V.

Also, there seems to be a problem with fundraising. I’m not netting the amount of money that i’m raising. Without any expenses (besides a few thousand in ground organization), I should’ve netted 3 million dollars but it only tallied to be 1.5 million. Did you change the fundraising code?

Well I played as Romney, and I noticed his his fundraising numbers for each state have decreased since the last version. Also if I’m not running ads and I have minimal expenses (totaling less than 10,000) I can’t figure out why I wouldn’t receive the total amount of fundraising.

What I’m trying to figure out is whether the discrepancy is between the estimated numbers when you click the Fundraiser activity and the actual, or between the number listed in the Turn Summary and the actual, or both?

Ok, I think what’s happening is that each time there’s a fundraiser in a specific region, the total ‘pool’ of available fundraising is reduced by some amount. The estimates are based on the pool of available fundraising before any of the fundraisers for that turn are done, so there will be a discrepancy. I’ll see how to make this more clear .. thanks for the feedback on this.

Great, everything else seems to be up to date. On election night in P4E2008, it listed the president/vice president on the bottom where each electoral votes are tracked. That might need to be updated. Also maybe you can also include bars on election like in the primaries tracking how close you are to winning, to give a different perspective.

I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this. It doesn’t happen all time; in fact, it might only happen when I have all the candidates on Human, but it may happen at other incidences.On the day after the convention, September 2nd, the Tracking Poll shoots up for both parties. In today’s instance, Obama was behind the Republicans throughout the entire primary. On September 2, Obama has 408 projected EVs and 60% of the pop vote. On September 3, it goes back to Gingrich winning in a landslide.